PDF Link Extractor

How to use the pdf link extractor

1. Choose your PDF.
2. Read the two lists — clickable annotations and written URLs.
3. Copy them if you need them elsewhere.

About this tool

Finds links two ways, and reports them separately because they are genuinely different things.

A link annotation is a clickable region on the page. It carries a target URL that a reader never sees, and that target can differ entirely from the text displayed over it. That is precisely how a misleading link works — the page reads `example.com` while the annotation points somewhere else — and it is the reason checking a PDF's real link targets is worth doing before trusting one.

A URL written in the text is just characters. Some viewers detect and linkify them, most do not, so a URL that looks like a link in one reader is plain text in another.

Seeing both lists side by side answers questions that neither answers alone: whether a document's links go where they claim, and whether a URL you can see is actually clickable.

A scanned document will usually yield nothing, because a scan is an image with no text layer to search and no annotations to read. That is worth knowing rather than being puzzled by.

Nothing is fetched. The links are read out of the file and listed — none is visited, so no request is made to any of them.

Common uses

• Checking where a document's links actually point before clicking.
• Collecting every reference from a report or paper.
• Auditing a published PDF for dead or wrong links.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between the two kinds?

A link annotation is a clickable region whose target can differ from the text shown over it. A URL in the text is just characters, clickable only if a particular viewer chooses to detect it.

Why did it find nothing in my PDF?

It is probably a scan — an image with no text layer and no annotations. There is nothing to read.

Are the links visited or checked?

No. They are read out of the file and listed. No request is made to any of them.